Explicit Non-linear Numerical Analysis of Dynamic Compaction

Abstract

Dynamic compaction is an efficient ground improvement technique. The collision process of dynamic compaction (DC) was studied using nonlinear explicit dynamic finite element. In this study many characters were taken into account, such as material nonlinearity, geometric nonlinearity, contact nonlinearity, movement nonlinearity and coupling characters of them, etc. The variation processes of losing kinetic energy and collision force of hammer and absorbing energy, deformation and density of soil were obtained at different drop height and weight of hammer. The analysis results indicate that strain is nonsynchronous with stress, cavity depth is proportional to the natural logarithm of hammer’s kinetic energy; the relationship of hammer’s initial kinetic energy and maximum collision force is not one-to-one correspondence. The results of the simulation are helpful for engineers to obtain an optimal design of the DC.